This piece is called “Tears.” There will be 54 parts released within hours of each other. Some will work, some won’t. Taken as a whole, there will be little sense of cohesion or sociopolitical relevance. It will read as a series of images, some striking, some grotesque, some nonsensical. You might feel irritated. You might want to take a hot shower. You might call a friend afterwards and see a movie. You might talk to their face and feel like you’re a part of something. You might sleep in your bed later feeling empowered, with a sense of purpose. Then you’ll wake up and everything will be capitals and periods, sentences and paragraphs, capitals and periods, sentences and periods, capitals and paragraphs.
Preface
i’ve got soul in my bones
got a home, a dog, and a man to call my own
every month
i've got my period
to take care of
and to collect in blue tampons
na na na
na na na
i’ve got mace, pepper-spray,
and some shoes that run faster than a rapist rapes
what i need is chemical castrations, hope, and godspeed
na na na
na na na
what i need is chemical castrations, hope, and godspeed
- the knife, “na na na”
55
The girl wears lipstick and high heels. Her nails are painted red like the color of her torso which leaks blood and water. The infant is wailing, but it’s nowhere to be found. The girl’s father would say it never existed. Sprawled on pavement, she keeps repeating that same rhyme, that same rhyme you sang as a child to ward off the bad things, the ghosts, demons, and old men that threatened to kill you in your sleep. It never worked for long, though, and eventually they got to you and hurt you and killed you and you were damaged beyond repair. Your parents couldn’t help and your friends abandoned you to your sickness. For the rest of your (long) life, you spent your evenings alone with television and microwave dinners. You would never marry.
Things said at the scene:
She’s a fashion victim if I ever saw one.
What on earth is she wearing?
That thing is hideous.
It looks like blood.
Oh… she must be one of “those” people.
It makes no sense to me.
Do people find this entertaining?
I wish she’d stop talking.
She’s starting to upset the others.
No, don’t look at her.
God, what were you were thinking?
The police arrive three hours too late, citing intense crime traffic – which, of course, is a lie. Lights flash, sirens blare, and crowds re-gather (upper class replaced by lower). The girl’s face has caved in from the waiting, leaving nothing but sunken skin and diluted blood flowers. Her dead eyes flash pearl white. The Sandman’s coming in his train of cars. With moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars. So put on you ‘jamas and say your prayers. Call an ambulance, can we get an ambulance here please, an ambulance, we need one pronto. The Sandman’s coming. Shit, she got great tits but her face looks like hell.
54
Head: keep pumping blood and oxygen. Blood and oxygen, blood and oxygen, blood and oxygen, blood and oxygen. In the kitchen, a small child. Cold and wet and dead. Take the knife (serrated for exacting penetration) and stab its head. Cut left two inches, diagonal five, and right seventeen. Cut deep. Place a hand in its brain and relive its last perceived moments.
[I remember catching a ball. I remember losing a ball. I remember looking for a ball. I remember finding a ball in a bush. I remember turning around. I remember smoke. I remember a house on fire. I remember Father on the front steps. I remember head, hands, and tears. I don’t know where Mother was.]
Take the knife (serrated for exacting penetration) and stab its heart. Cut right seventeen inches, diagonal five, and left two. Cut deep. Place a hand in its heart chamber and take from it the heart. Blood and oxygen. There's a hole somewhere in the woods. Bury it and don't remember it.
--
Intestines. Purple and blue slime-covered intestines. Dozens draped over an artificial wall in the center of a small room. Blood made from milk and red food coloring leaking out of wooden floor tiles. One tile bobs up and down as the result of three oversize human brains protruding from underneath. Having been drained of fluid, filled with steaming hot plastic, and airbrushed in tasteful fashion, these brains are connected via component cables to three outputs on the back of a television set that doesn’t exist but nevertheless displays propaganda from past world wars and sparkles and flickers and sparkles and flickers and sparklesandflickers like so many fireworks.
54
IN THE FUTURE…
I spent the afternoon at the park with Chloe. When I got home, I felt tired and wanted to die. There were a hundred new messages on the answering machine and a bouquet of flowers I forgot to give rotted on the counter. I turned on the television and watched a news report about a man who killed his brother over a football bet and all he could say was “I'm sorry.” Later, Sandra called. She said she was suffocating. I didn’t have words to tell her so I hung up the phone and listened to it ring for fifteen minutes, the sound just echoing and echoing, and then I decided I was hungry but there was nothing in the fridge. I went to sleep early, waking up late with the sun shining bright on my face and feeling like I could end it then and there and I just wouldn’t care.
THERE WILL BE
GUNS
TANKS
AND BOMBS
THERE WILL BE
MEN
WOMEN
AND CHILDREN
DEAD AND DYING AND
HOLDING EACH OTHER’S HANDS
WHILE BLOOD WASHES THE STREETS CLEAN OF LIFE
POLITICIANS WILL LIE TO OUR FACES
OUR BROTHERS WILL BECOME FACELESS
ENEMIES NOT TO BE SEEN NOT TO BE TRUSTED
OUR LIVES WILL REVOLVE AROUND THE CAUSE
OUR LIVES WILL BECOME THE CAUSE
WE WILL MAKE WEAPONS IN FACTORIES
WE WILL DEFEAT THE OTHERS BEFORE THE OTHERS DEFEAT US
The End
)
